"There is no way this will be a blowout on the part of either club," Schlosser said Wednesday. Coach Silvester Bozinski of Nanticoke agrees. "It should be very, very close," Bozinski said yesterday.

Their records are almost identical. Central Catholic, District 11's No. 2 team, is 23-4 following a fingernail-biting 62-60 squeeze past Glen Mills of District 1 Tuesday. Nanticoke, District 2's No. 1 team, is 25-3 on the wings of a less-exciting 69-61 triumph over York Suburban of District 3 that same night.

It's really hard to say who should be favored. The teams have met only one common opponent, Dallas. Central Catholic downed Dallas by 12 points. Nanticoke trounced Dallas twice this season - by 27 points and 15 points.

The Vikings are members of the East Penn Conference. The Trojans belong to the Wyoming Valley Conference. Nanticoke won that title, losing only to Hazleton along the way. Since then the Trojans have won 19 games in a row.

Piontkowski is the leader. He is averaging 16 points and 11 rebounds a game. Schinski is the second leading scorer with a 15.7 average and Guffrovich is third with 15.4. That's a lot of firepower.

The Trojans coach said he has a good deal of respect for Central Catholic.

"Central Catholic is a very well-coached team . . . good size . . . experienced . . . strong physically . . . they love to run . . . they have talent on their roster from top to bottom . . . what more can I say?

"No easy pickin' by any means," he quickly added.

Central Catholic's Schlosser also has words of praise about Nanticoke.

"Their excellent balance concerns us the most," Schlosser said. "They get a lot of scoring from three, four, even five people soobviously we must play fine defense if we hope to stop them. Also, we must rebound well because Nanticoke has good size.

"Yes, they are very tough but they are beatable," Schlosser noted.

Both teams are expected to begin with zones. "The Wyoming Valley Conference is a zone league," Bozinski observed. "That's about all we have played all winter." Schlosser is a bit more flexible. When the Viking zone is not working the way he wants, he does not hesitate sending his club into a man-to-man. "We know that our zone must stop Nanticoke both on the inside and outside if we are going to keep using it," Schlosser said.

"We are continuing to concentrate on having the proper attitude and I think our guys right now are at their peak in that respect," Schlosser said. "Having such a difficult game against Glen Mills was an excellent experience for us and we do have much momentum going for us. The important thing is that we keep our cool no matter how difficult things get."

Schlosser said it is true indeed that his team is a bit tired.

"When you get this far in the playoffs you are bound to be tired," he said. "However, all that must be put aside. There will be plenty of time to rest when this is all over. Hopefully that will not be for another week."

The state title will be decided next Friday in Hershey. Meanwhile, tonight's winner will be back in action Tuesday in the eastern final against the survivor of tonight's York Catholic-Middletown contest.